Why do you get noticed only when you go to extremes: you can’t read five lines without the ridicule of your classmates, or you set a new high jump record in front of the whole school? To be invisible in the eyes of others, especially in the eyes of the most popular girl in school – this is the fate of Mike.
What worries are in his head? A fourteen-year-old teenager is a bunch of worries, anxiety and confusion about the most important things in his opinion: the first love (as usual unshared) and quarrels between parents, the “beauty factory” of his mother and his father’s secretary, a sense of joy and at the same time sadness due to the beginning of the summer holidays. You don’t even have a nickname!
New student Chik (Andrey Chikhachev) appeared at the first lesson after the Easter holidays and immediately "bringed the first change in our lives." What's wrong with him? Nothing special, except that he speaks German for the fourth year, in a relationship with the Russian mafia, receives deuces and fours with alternate success (it all depends on how much he “taken” before class) and pacifies the main bully in the school parking lot with just one phrase.
Why did he choose Mike? Going south to the throne of Wallachia on the stolen Niva, you need to think about who you take as fellow travelers. So the answer doesn't come immediately. According to Mike, he is a “creepy nerd and a terrible coward”, but in fact you see a person who at least once in his life did something boring and acted against the established rules. During these days, spent behind the wheel, in roadside cafes, at lunch at the “wonderful” (you put the stress yourself) people, and nights in sleeping bags at the edge of the forest, a car parked on the very “abyss in the rye”, and a hospital near this abyss, the best summer in the lives of the main characters is born.
Today, having stumbled upon this masterpiece, in conditions of necessary self-isolation, I smiled for the first time in a few days. Why? Because as hard as it is not to cope with everyday work, suddenly you realize that you have, in fact, no problem.
Yesterday I finished reading Tschick in German. Being very impressed with the pictures drawn in my head during the reading of the book, I decided that I should watch a film based on it. And I did not regret that I lived this story again through watching the film.
The most important advantage of this film is that it looks very light, very cheerful. If the rapid changeability of scenes and acquaintances in the book was noted by me as a minus, then in the film it creates a certain dynamic, sets the desired pace.
The cast very delivered: everything is in its place, everyone is like that. As for the visual component that I liked, it is the stunning landscapes and landscapes running outside the window of Niva! Videos create this sense of lightness, color correction creates a sense of summer, and music complements the atmosphere of teenage stupidity with a kind of ease.
Of course, the script does not strictly follow the book in places, although in places it repeats its text exactly, but it is a pity that the embodiment of some book characters and funny moments did not happen to see. That’s probably my biggest concern with the movie.
I recommend watching anyone who wants something light and atmospheric! You will find an amazing road adventure with many memorable episodes, lasting only an hour and a half!
Did you know that in Russia criminal liability comes from the age of sixteen, and in Germany from fourteen? Germans are more respectful of law and order, and less inclined to be gracious about “they are children!” You may not agree, but this is the main driving force of the story. The boy is fourteen, he lives in a wealthy family: his mother is an alcoholic, but is matchless in tennis, his father is bankrupt, but of those who are forced to unpack the last account in an offshore.
Mike is in the eighth grade of the Berlin gymnasium, does not shine with talents and beauty, is unpopular, completely alone. The appearance in their class of a Russian with a strange name, which even the teacher can not pronounce the first time (the second, however, too. because the Russian Chikhachev according to the rules of German grammar is transmitted as Tschichatschow) does not fill with enthusiasm. Sociopathic, besides, it smells like overcooking sometimes. And the clothes from cheap sales.
But sometimes (when not out of a hangover, Mike thinks) he gives such amazing results in mathematics that even their animal teacher talks about some additional classes that he could attend. However, all this has absolutely nothing to do with the life of Mike, which ended exactly with the beginning of the holidays, when the main beauty of the class Tatiana invited everyone to the party in honor of her fifteenth birthday, except for him and a couple of frank sludge. Chikhacheva didn't invite him either, but he doesn't seem to care. You don't. And you are sitting alone at home (mother once again at a detox in a drug clinic, papachen and his mistress swelled into a trip, throwing two hundred euros into poverty). You shred your ass in computer games, you try to sunbathe on an inflatable mattress in the pool, yes, you have a pool, and a large house, and a neat lawn. There is no happiness.
Happiness creeps up unexpectedly in the form you least expect, the Russian asocial Chikhachev on the stolen Niva, a murderous sob against the background of licked and sparkling German cars. And then there will be a lot of “Knocking to Heaven”, a little from “Clockwork Orange” (the smallest), something from “Goodbye to Berlin” by Christopher Isherwood, according to the novel with the same name that the film received in the American, and after the Russian box office, Bob Foss shot his “Cabaret” (loneliness, strange meetings, latent homosexuality, revanchism). The film is cool, it has real friendship, adventure, trials and overcoming. There is no dynamics of characters, as they were at the beginning, and such heroes remain and that is also right. No one changes in essence, our appearance in the eyes of others and how we treat ourselves.
The German film “Goodbye, Berlin”, based on Wolfgang Nerndorf’s bestseller “Cheek”, became known far beyond Germany. The director, Fatih Akin, managed to combine love, hope, friendship, thirst for adventure, thereby capturing the viewer and allowing him to be part of the picture.
The film is made in the format of drama and comedy. The main character of the film, 14-year-old hopeless romantic Mike, is experiencing difficulties not only at school, but also at home, where his mother is an alcoholic, and his father is busy with work and a mistress. At first, Mike was not happy with his new roommate, Chick, who shows his coolness in a rather funny way - smokes, drinks whiskey, steals, and, of course, is Russian. However, after a while they find a common language. One day Chick comes to Mike on a blue stolen Niva and offers to go on a trip to Wallachia to his grandfather, where on the way they are waiting for a lot of adventures.
Tristan Goebel and Anand Batbileg perfectly coped with their roles, demonstrating in the film dedication, naivety, courage, real friendship, the ability to hear and understand each other, which very accurately emphasized throughout all the actions successfully selected and timely inserted musical accompaniment.
The ending of the film is quite predictable, but thanks to a good performance of the actors managed to brighten up and logically finish the picture, without spoiling the impression of the whole film.
Cinema, despite the ease and simplicity of the plot, makes you think. The film will be interesting, perhaps, to everyone, because in each of us lives a little rebel, who sometimes so want to let out. I recommend it as an evening session in good company!
German cinema never ceases to amaze!
Starting to watch this film, there was some doubt in the soul - rarely, very rarely in recent times there is something that is not a pity to spend an hour and a half of your life.
Yes, some things I would like to remove from this movie (many people will understand what I mean after watching it). But this is not another Hollywood remake of his own movie! This is a film about ordinary teenagers with naive dreams, but with sound thoughts, which are often lacking in adults. And watching this movie, you immerse yourself in the time when you were just as young.
I will remember this film, like many other films by Fatih Akin. This person manages to make such films that can be reviewed more than once, and each time find something new in them, not noticed in the first (and in some cases the second) time.
The film is definitely in the collection. Fatih Akin – good luck and new ideas, look forward to another masterpiece. Thank you for your creations!
What to do an outsider, a loser and a loser when defeats go on in a continuous series, covering with a wave of disappointment? Enjoy life, getting high from every minute of it, break the usual rhythm, breaking out of the arms of longing and boredom! Going camping with a friend you barely know, taking all the risks of living on your own with responsibility for everything you do and do. Unbeknownst to him, act as an adult, dividing truth and lies into two sides.
Shooting a lot of good movies, Fatih Akin this time took up Wolfgang Nerndorf’s bestseller “Cheek”, translated as “Good Bay, Berlin”, which became widely known outside Germany itself, where it was included in the list of literature recommended for compulsory reading by schoolchildren, who, like Tristan Goebel, often ignore the book of an unfamiliar author with the suspicious name “Tschick”.
Only after receiving the role, Tristan still read this story. Moreover, this was the first time that a young actor for the sake of filming agreed to significantly shorten his long hair, usually descending below the shoulders, which used to be an insurmountable obstacle to his participation in several films that, as he believed, were not worth the sacrifice of his hair.
For the film, the choice for the main role of Goebel is no less important than the directorship of Fatih Akin, but the script becomes crucial for him, not just decomposing the book by episodes, but endowed with the integrity of a separate work containing essential moments of growth and development of the personality, along the way unaware of the fact that it grows and develops somewhere, changing from day to day, from new to new. The script not only determines the action, it retains in the film literary features, specific humor and capacity of speech, where there are no idle questions and random answers, but there are solutions that require strength, courage and simple self-confidence.
Not finding a suitable Russian, the producers of the film did not lose, giving, in the original, the title role of Andrei Chichachov, the son of an employee of the Embassy of Mongolia in Germany Anand Batbileg, after a short introductory briefing, took a place behind the wheel of a battered Niva, stuffing friends with the devastated and insecure Mike Klingenberg, with a proposal to go on the run together.
And it is good that the guys found a common language, creating a harmonious combination of different temperaments and characters, in trust revealing from the most different and unexpected sides for those who are not familiar with the book, from where many nuances of family relations and social ties came to the screen, preserving the magical combination of adventurism and internal analysis, which can be followed by pauses with close-up plans of the face of Tristan Goebel, whose own maturity clearly exceeds the age of the character and his performer, creating the very effect of development, improvement and, if you want, wisdom, which brings not only years, but also events that push the time forward.
The ability to understand people, the ability to understand, the ability to see and feel, take to heart - at each turn, travelers are waiting for meetings and new acquaintances, especially important - with a wandering girl Isa, who became briefly a companion of the guys who are facing the question of who wants what, continuing to determine the measure of truth and stupidity, acting by conviction, not by calculation, to the pouring sounds of the spirit-lifting piano etude Ballade Pour Adeline, according to the plan of the writer accompanying travelers with the anthe anthem of the upcoming triumph.